The GOD Delusion (9 page)

Gould
carried the art of bending over backwards to positively supine lengths
in one of his less admired books,
Rocks of Ages.
There
he coined the acronym NOMA for the phrase 'non-overlapping magisterial

The
net, or magisterium, of science covers the empirical realm: what is the
universe made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The
magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and
moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass
all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the
meaning of beauty). To cite the old cliches, science gets the age of
rocks, and religion the rock of ages; science studies how the heavens
go, religion how to go to heaven.

This
sounds terrific - right up until you give it a moment's thought. What
are these ultimate questions in whose presence religion is an honoured
guest and science must respectfully slink away?

Martin
Rees, the distinguished Cambridge astronomer whom I have already
mentioned, begins his book
Our Cosmic Habitat
by
posing two candidate ultimate questions and giving a NOMA-friendly
answer. 'The pre-eminent mystery is why anything exists at all. What
breathes life into the equations, and actualized them in a real cosmos?
Such questions lie beyond science, however: they are the
province of philosophers and theologians.' I would prefer to say that
if indeed they lie beyond science, they most certainly lie beyond the
province of theologians as well (I doubt that philosophers would thank
Martin Rees for lumping theologians in with them). I am tempted to go
further and wonder in what possible sense theologians can be said to
have
a province. I am still amused when I recall the remark of a
former Warden (head) of my Oxford college. A young theologian had
applied for a junior research fellowship, and his doctoral thesis on
Christian theology provoked the Warden to say, 'I have grave doubts as
to whether it's a
subject
at all.'

What
expertise can theologians bring to deep cosmological questions that
scientists cannot? In another book I recounted the words of an Oxford
astronomer who, when I asked him one of those same deep questions,
said: 'Ah, now we move beyond the realm of science. This is where I
have to hand over to our good friend the chaplain.' I was not
quick-witted enough to utter the response that I later wrote: 'But why
the chaplain? Why not the gardener or the chef?' Why are scientists so
cravenly respectful towards the ambitions of theologians, over
questions that theologians are certainly no more qualified to answer
than scientists themselves?

It
is a tedious cliche (and, unlike many cliches, it isn't even true) that
science concerns itself with
how
questions, but
only theology is equipped to answer
why
questions.
What on Earth
is
a why question? Not every English
sentence beginning with the word 'why' is a legitimate question. Why
are unicorns hollow? Some questions simply do not deserve an answer.
What is the colour of abstraction? What is the smell of hope? The fact
that a question can be phrased in a grammatically correct English
sentence doesn't make it meaningful, or entitle it to our serious
attention. Nor, even if the question is a real one, does the fact that
science cannot answer it imply that religion can.

Perhaps
there are some genuinely profound and meaningful questions that are
forever beyond the reach of science. Maybe quantum theory is already
knocking on the door of the unfathomable. But if science cannot answer
some ultimate question, what makes anybody think that religion can? I
suspect that neither the
Cambridge nor the Oxford astronomer really believed that theologians
have any expertise that enables them to answer questions that are too
deep for science. I suspect that both astronomers were, yet again,
bending over backwards to be polite: theologians have nothing
worthwhile to say about anything else; let's throw them a sop and let
them worry away at a couple of questions that nobody can answer and
maybe never will. Unlike my astronomer friends, I don't think we should
even throw them a sop. I have yet to see any good reason to suppose
that theology (as opposed to biblical history, literature, etc.) is a
subject at all.

Similarly,
we can all agree that science's entitlement to advise us on moral
values is problematic, to say the least. But does Gould really want to
cede to
religion
the right to tell us what is good
and what is bad? The fact that it has nothing
else
to
contribute to human wisdom is no reason to hand religion a free licence
to tell us what to do. Which religion, anyway? The one in which we
happen to have been brought up? To which chapter, then, of which book
of the Bible should we turn - for they are far from unanimous and some
of them are odious by any reasonable standards. How many literalists
have read enough of the Bible to know that the death penalty is
prescribed for adultery, for gathering sticks on the sabbath and for
cheeking your parents? If we reject Deuteronomy and Leviticus (as all
enlightened moderns do), by what criteria do we then decide which of
religion's moral values to
accept}
Or should we
pick and choose among all the world's religions until we find one whose
moral teaching suits us? If so, again we must ask, by what criterion do
we choose? And if we have independent criteria for choosing among
religious moralities, why not cut out the middle man and go straight
for the moral choice without the religion? I shall return to such
questions in Chapter 7.

I
simply do not believe that Gould could possibly have meant much of what
he wrote in
Rocks of Ages.
As I say, we have all
been guilty of bending over backwards to be nice to an unworthy but
powerful opponent, and I can only think that this is what Gould was
doing. It is conceivable that he really did intend his unequivocally
strong statement that science has nothing whatever to say about the
question of God's existence: 'We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply
can't comment on it as scientists.' This sounds like
agnosticism of the permanent and irrevocable kind, full-blown PAP. It
implies that science cannot even make
probability
judgements
on the question. This remarkably widespread fallacy - many repeat it
like a mantra but few of them, I suspect, have thought it through -
embodies what I refer to as 'the poverty of agnosticism'. Gould, by the
way, was not an impartial agnostic but strongly inclined towards
de
facto
atheism. On what basis did he make that judgement, if
there is nothing to be said about whether God exists? The God
Hypothesis suggests that the reality we inhabit also contains a
supernatural agent who designed the universe and - at least in many
versions of the hypothesis - maintains it and even intervenes in it
with miracles, which are temporary violations of his own otherwise
grandly immutable laws. Richard Swinburne, one of Britain's leading
theologians, is surprisingly clear on the matter in his book
Is
There a God?:

What
the theist claims about God is that he does have a power to create,
conserve, or annihilate anything, big or small. And he can also make
objects move or do anything else . . . He can make the planets move in
the way that Kepler discovered that they move, or make gunpowder
explode when we set a match to it; or he can make planets move in quite
different ways, and chemical substances explode or not explode under
quite different conditions from those which now govern their behaviour.
God is not limited by the laws of nature; he makes them and he can
change or suspend them - if he chooses.

Just
too easy, isn't it! Whatever else this is, it is very far from NOMA.
And whatever else they may say, those scientists who subscribe to the
'separate magisteria' school of thought should concede that a universe
with a supernaturally intelligent creator is a very different kind of
universe from one without. The difference between the two hypothetical
universes could hardly be more fundamental in principle, even if it is
not easy to test in practice. And it undermines the complacently
seductive dictum that science must be completely silent about
religion's central existence claim. The presence or absence of a
creative super-intelligence is unequivocally
a scientific question, even if it is not in practice - or not yet - a
decided one. So also is the truth or falsehood of every one of the
miracle stories that religions rely upon to impress multitudes of the
faithful.

Did
Jesus have a human father, or was his mother a virgin at the time of
his birth? Whether or not there is enough surviving evidence to decide
it, this is still a strictly scientific question with a definite answer
in principle: yes or no. Did Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead? Did he
himself come alive again, three days after being crucified? There is an
answer to every such question, whether or not we can discover it in
practice, and it is a strictly scientific answer. The methods we should
use to settle the matter, in the unlikely event that relevant evidence
ever became available, would be purely and entirely scientific methods.
To dramatize the point, imagine, by some remarkable set of
circumstances, that forensic archaeologists unearthed DNA evidence to
show that Jesus really did lack a biological father. Can you imagine
religious apologists shrugging their shoulders and saying anything
remotely like the following? 'Who cares? Scientific evidence is
completely irrelevant to theological questions. Wrong magisterium!
We're concerned only with ultimate questions and with moral values.
Neither DNA nor any other scientific evidence could ever have any
bearing on the matter, one way or the other.'

The
very idea is a joke. You can bet your boots that the scientific
evidence, if any were to turn up, would be seized upon and trumpeted to
the skies. NOMA is popular only because there is no evidence to favour
the God Hypothesis. The moment there was the smallest suggestion of any
evidence in favour of religious belief, religious apologists would lose
no time in throwing NOMA out of the window. Sophisticated theologians
aside (and even they are happy to tell miracle stories to the
unsophisticated in order to swell congregations), I suspect that
alleged miracles provide the strongest reason many believers have for
their faith; and miracles, by definition, violate the principles of
science.

The
Roman Catholic Church on the one hand seems sometimes to aspire to
NOMA, but on the other hand lays down the performance of miracles as an
essential qualification for elevation to sainthood. The late King of
the Belgians is a candidate for sainthood,
because of his stand on abortion. Earnest investigations are now going
on to discover whether any miraculous cures can be attributed to
prayers offered up to him since his death. I am not joking. That is the
case, and it is typical of saint stories. I imagine the whole business
is an embarrassment to more sophisticated circles within the Church.
Why any circles worthy of the name of sophisticated remain within the
Church is a mystery at least as deep as those that theologians enjoy.

When
faced with miracle stories, Gould would presumably retort along the
following lines. The whole point of NOMA is that it is a two-way
bargain. The moment religion steps on science's turf and starts to
meddle in the real world with miracles, it ceases to be religion in the
sense Gould is defending, and his
amicabilis concordia
is
broken. Note, however, that the miracle-free religion defended by Gould
would not be recognized by most practising theists in the pew or on the
prayer mat. It would, indeed, be a grave disappointment to them. To
adapt Alice's comment on her sister's book before she fell into
Wonderland, what is the use of a God who does no miracles and answers
no prayers? Remember Ambrose Bierce's witty definition of the verb 'to
pray': 'to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a
single petitioner, confessedly unworthy'. There are athletes who
believe God helps them win - against opponents who would seem, on the
face of it, no less worthy of his favouritism. There are motorists who
believe God saves them a parking space - thereby presumably depriving
somebody else. This style of theism is embarrassingly popular, and is
unlikely to be impressed by anything as (superficially) reasonable as
NOMA.

Nevertheless,
let us follow Gould and pare our religion down to some sort of
non-interventionist minimum: no miracles, no personal communication
between God and us in either direction, no monkeying with the laws of
physics, no trespassing on the scientific grass. At most, a little
deistic input to the initial conditions of the universe so that, in the
fullness of time, stars, elements, chemistry and planets develop, and
life evolves. Surely that is an adequate separation? Surely NOMA can
survive this more modest and unassuming religion?

Well,
you might think so. But I suggest that even a non-interventionist,
NOMA God, though less violent and clumsy than an Abrahamic God, is
still, when you look at him fair and square, a scientific hypothesis. I
return to the point: a universe in which we are alone except for other
slowly evolved intelligences is a very different universe from one with
an original guiding agent whose intelligent design is responsible for
its very existence. I accept that it may not be so easy in practice to
distinguish one kind of universe from the other. Nevertheless, there is
something utterly special about the hypothesis of ultimate design, and
equally special about the only known alternative: gradual evolution in
the broad sense. They are close to being irreconcilably different. Like
nothing else, evolution really does provide an explanation for the
existence of entities whose improbability would otherwise, for
practical purposes, rule them out. And the conclusion to the argument,
as I shall show in Chapter 4, is close to being terminally fatal to the
God Hypothesis.